[268] Mannert, Geograph. Gr. Röm. part viii, book i, c. 16, p. 248; Strabo, x, pp. 445-449.
[269] The seventh Oration of Dio Chrysostom, which describes his shipwreck near Cape Kaphareus, on the island of Eubœa, and the shelter and kindness which he experienced from a poor mountain huntsman, presents one of the most interesting pictures remaining, of this purely rustic portion of the Greek population (Or. vii, p. 221, seq.),—men who never entered the city, and were strangers to the habits, manners, and dress there prevailing,—men who drank milk and were clothed in skins (γαλακτοπότας ἀνὴρ, οὐρειβάτας, Eurip. Elektr. 169), yet nevertheless (as it seems) possessing right of citizenship (p. 238) which they never exercised. The industry of the poor men visited by Dion had brought into cultivation a little garden and field in a desert spot near Kaphareus.
Two-thirds of the territory of this Euboic city consisted of barren mountain (p. 232); it must probably have been Karystus.
The high lands of Eubœa were both uninhabited and difficult of approach, even at the time of the battle of Marathon, when Chalkis and Eretria had not greatly declined from the maximum of their power: the inhabitants of Eretria looked to τὰ ἄρκα τῆς Εὐβοίης as a refuge against the Persian force under Datis (Herod. vi, 100).
[270] Strabo, x, p. 445.
[271] Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 296; Strab. x, p. 446 (whose statements are very perplexed); Velleius Patercul. i, 4.
According to Skymnus the Chian (v. 572), Chalkis was founded by Pandôrus son of Erechtheus, and Kêrinthus by Kothôn, from Athens.
[272] Strabo, x, p. 446,—Πὰρ δὲ Χαλκιδικαὶ σπάθαι (Alkæus, Fragm. 7, Schneidewin),—Χαλκιδικὸν ποτήριον (Aristophan. Equit. 237),—certainly belongs to the Euboic Chalkis, not to the Thrakian Chalkidikê. Boeckh, Staatshaushalt. der Athener, vol. ii, p. 284, App. xi, cites Χαλκιδικὰ ποτηρία in an inscription: compare Steph. Byz. Χαλκὶς.—Ναυσικλείτης Εὐβοίης, Homer, Hymn. Apoll. 219.
[273] See the mineralogical account of the islands in Fiedler (Reisen, vol. ii, pp. 88, 118, 562).
The copper and iron ore near Chalkis had ceased to be worked even in the time of Strabo: Fiedler indicates the probable site (vol. i, p. 443).